City of Lockport agency saves county-focused wine and food shop
Emporium has high hopes
LOCKPORT — The city’s development agency stepped in recently to save a plan by the owners of a local advertising firm to open a retail store devoted to selling wine and packaged food produced in Niagara County.
After the Niagara River Greenway Commission recommended against aid to the proposed Canalside Wine Emporium, the Greater Lockport Development Corp. approved a deal to keep the project viable. Now, the promoters hope to open before the summer is out.
“The key part is to open before the tourists are gone,” said Jack Martin, co-owner of J. Fitzgerald Group, a West Main Street ad agency. He and his partner in the agency, Carmel Cerullo-Beiter, also are partners in the planned new store.
“I really, really believe strongly in the idea of buying local,” said Sara Capen of Newfane, who is to manage the store.
She believes so much in the concept that she quit a job as an American history teacher at Holley Central School in Orleans County, which she had held on and off for 10 years, to take the Emporium job.
The store expects to stock wines from most or all wineries along the Niagara Wine Trail, along with prepackaged food from local farms and shops.”
“We make all these terrific products, and we overlook this bounty in our backyards,” said Capen, the daughter of former Niagara County Sheriff Thomas A. Beilein.
Cerullo-Beiter said the idea “probably originated in our own pub down here.” J. Fitzgerald Group has its own pub in the basement.
She continued, “We wanted to do something to promote local products. We saw those [Canal Street] buildings, and we were talking about what would be good there.”
The Niagara Wine Trail, which links all the county’s wineries, came up in the conversation. All the wineries sell wine at their own locations, but distribution off-site can be spotty.
“It’s fun to be out there [on the Wine Trail], but not everybody has the opportunity to go there,” Cerullo- Beiter said.
A May 19 meeting of the Niagara River Greenway Commission rejected a $100,000 grant request for the store by a 6-4 vote, as it determined the project didn’t meet Greenway criteria.
That vote included negative proxy votes from two state agencies that objected that the site at 79 Canal St. was to be privately owned, rather than controlled by the City of Lockport. Greenway money was meant for public projects.
Learning of those objections, the city submitted a revised request at the meeting where the city would hold onto the Canal Street building and lease it to the store. However, the two agencies that sent in proxy votes weren’t there and never found out about the change.
“The Greenway Commission wanted to meet with us again,” Martin said. “The problem, their meeting wasn’t going to be until July or August.”
In hopes that the store could open this summer, the Greater Lockport Development Corp. stepped in.
Corporation Counsel John J. Ottaviano said the agency will work out a lease on 79 Canal St. with Martin’s group, lasting at least five years, with the company to buy the property at the end of the lease.
The price will be at least $18,000 a year, making $90,000 over five years.
That just happens to be the estimated cost of preparing the inside of the structure for retail use — a cost the city development corporation will bear.
Ottaviano said no competitive bidding is needed on the job. The work may go to the contractor Martin had lined up when he thought his firm was going to have to pay for the work up front. That’s Zak Remodeling of Amherst, Martin said.
Martin said that he thought the building, the former Model T Bar, was in move-in condition. He found out otherwise.
“It doesn’t have a [finished] floor, it needs electrical, the whole HVAC system, a bathroom,” he said.
The exterior of the building was restored as part of a project to turn three stone buildings, dating from the late 19th century, into usable commercial space. That project, funded primarily by state and federal grants, cost about $3 million.
Mayor Michael W. Tucker was counting on the Greenway grant and was angry when he learned of its defeat. That’s when he decided the city would take charge.
“It’s really going to ignite the whole block,” Tucker said. “It’s a very exciting project.”
Funding and construction aren’t the only issues. Capen said, “The target date [for opening] is going to depend on when the State Liquor Authority grants the liquor license for the satellite.”
From a liquor license point of view, the Canalside Emporium is a satellite of the Winery at Marjim Manor, an Appleton location on the Wine Trail.
Capen said, “If the building sold liquor before, the process goes faster.” Thus, the fact that 79 Canal St. used to be a bar could be a help.
Capen also is the manager of the Kempville Wine Store in Olcott, another Marjim offshoot, which officially opens this weekend.
Last year, she and her sister Bridget Beilein had a business called the Sassy Farmer, delivering locally made goods to customers.
Martin said the Emporium will sell local wine at the same retail prices the wineries post.
“We’re getting this thing off the ground to be self-sustaining,” he said. “The profits would go back into the business.”
Martin said that although the store is to be open year-round, likely with reduced hours in the winter, the prime summer season is what he’s counting on.
Looking out the window of his office overlooking the canal, Martin saw a Lockport Locks and Erie Canal Cruises boat glide past.
“Every time I hear this boat go by,” he said, “it makes me cringe. More potential customers [missed].”
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